THE CALL
1434 Words
Point of View — David
Exactly 11:47 PM his phone rang.
He knew it like one realizes thunder strikes before the clouds burst. David knew it was Maya even before looking at the screen.A pressure built in his chest as he held the phone on the hotel nightstand and looked at her name for a complete two seconds before responding.
"Hello." His voice came out friendly. He had attended succeeding meetings since 4pm that afternoon, his tie still secure, his jacket still on, and the room service tray remained untouched on the desk next to him.
She remained silent at once.
That quietness affected him in a way.
"Maya." He sat up tall. "Hey, is everything fine?" Is Ethan "
"Ethan is okay." Her voice was soft. Not the stillness of a person who was composed. The stillness of a person who had already completed experiencing an emotion and was now beyond it. "He's in slumber."
He bent back against the headboard and loosened his tie with one hand. The window before him showed the Chicago skyline , a blend of lights, images, and distance, and he looked at it without really seeing it.
"Alright." He maintained. "That's pleasant." "What was the rest of the party like?"
She did not answer that question.
"David." She spoke his name as if setting something that is easily breaking on a shelf. Cautiously. As if she doubted it would remain intact. "He glanced at that door once every three minutes."
He shut his eyes.
"He indicated something to you." Her voice remained steady. That was the segment that affected him. It didn’t tremble in the slightest. "He painted it himself in the car while heading to get the balloons." Azure and gold. He wrote “Daddy” in bold letters at the top and drew a picture of the two of you below.
David placed the heel of his palm on his forehead
"Maya "
She kept on as if she hadn't listen him. It felt like the words had been inserted in her throat all day, and now that she started, she couldn’t hold back them anymore. "He consistently kept it beside his chair." Once the final guest departed, he folded it and requested that I store it in a secure place.
The space was incredibly silent.
He could detect her breathing through the phone.
"Where is it that you placed it?" He was unaware of the reason he posed that question. It wasn't the appropriate question. There wasn't a correct question. However, it was what emerged.
"In his backpack." She stated. "He intends to hand it to you upon your return."
Something shifted within David's chest then. Not discomfort precisely. Something more gradual and weighty than suffering. Something that took root in the core of you and remained there.
He removed the phone from his ear briefly and gazed at the hotel room's ceiling. White. Level. Tidy. Totally vacant. He returned the phone.
"I will return on Thursday." He remarked. "I'll bring him to a different place." Only the two of us. "Wherever he wishes to travel."
She became silent once more.
"Alright." She stated.
That term.
He had heard her say it three times that day, and with each case, it felt less like agreement and more like something closing off. A door is gently closed from the inside.
"Are you alright?" He inquired.
She inhaled slightly. "I'm weary, David."
"I'm aware." Handling the party must have been quite a challenge on your own. "I apologize, I "
"This is not my aim." She said it in such a lower voice that he almost missed it.
He stopped talking.
The silence that came up between them made longer and weakened, resembling something being pulled too far apart in opposite directions.
"I'm tired." She repeated herself. This time, at a slower pace. As if she selected each word like you pick a stone to step on while crossing a river. "I'm exhausted in a manner that rest can't remedy."
He remained silent.
He was unsure of what to express.
He sat opposite investors intent on breaking up his company and met their gaze firmly, aware of precisely how to position his words. He entered spaces where everything was collapsing and discovered the words to keep it united. Yet here, in this hotel room, with his wife's voice echoing through a phone at midnight, he felt he had nothing. Every word he tried to grasp seemed incorrect even before it fully took shape.
"Maya." All he possessed was her name.
"I set a plate aside for you." She stated. "I took care of it and all." "I maintained its warmth."
His eyes hurt. He pushed them closed.
"I perform that consistently." She stated. "Are you aware of that?" Whenever you don't return home, I set a plate aside and keep it heated, and afterward, I clean it and store it away without mentioning it.
"I wasn't aware of that." His voice emerged softly.
"I’m aware you didn’t."
It wasn't a condemnation. That was the most difficult part. She expressed it as if it were a straightforward truth , like saying the sky is blue or the window is shut. No rage in it. No warmth. Simply a woman expressing a truth she has understood for years.
David got up from the bed. He was unaware of the reason. He strolled to the window and looked out at the city below. All those lights. All those buildings. All that noise carried on beneath him while he stood completely still.
"I'll fix this." He said it to the glass. "When I get home I'll "
"David." She stopped him. Gentle and firm at the same time. "Don't."
"Don't do that."
"Don't make another promise on the phone at midnight." She said, "Please. Not tonight."
He pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the window.
Below him the city moved and breathed and did not care.
"Alright." He remarked. And he listened as soon as it escaped his lips , that term. Her statement. Emerging from him now, echoing as empty as it had seemed when it came from her that afternoon.
She listened to it as well. He could sense it from the silence that came after.
"Sleep well, David." She stated.
"Sleep well."
The phone call fell silent.
He remained at the window, phone in hand, for an extended period. The display lowered in brightness. Turned off the lights. His reflection was visible in the glass now , shirt wrinkled, tie somewhat loose, a man positioned in a brightly lit room far above a city where he had no right to be this evening.
He appeared to be a significant person.
He felt as if he had just overlooked something significant, unable to specify what it was, but sensed , deep down and without words , that it was far from trivial.
He returned to the desk. He glanced at the tray from room service. The meal had become cold. He took the fork and set it down again. He powered on his laptop. Three new messages from the legal department. One from his aide. One from the Chicago client with the subject line labeled “urgent.”
He shut the laptop.
He took his phone once more and accessed his pictures. He scrolled back , through meetings, screenshots, and flight confirmations , until he located the final photo Maya had sent him. A couple of months prior.
Ethan sat on the counter in the kitchen, eating cereals straight out of the box, his eyes closed and smiling. You could see Maya's arm at the bottom of the shot, her hand close to his knee.
David stared at that picture for an extended period.
He continued to scroll.
Further behind. Moreover, until he discovered one from the previous year. Maya and him at the park. She looked directly at the camera, her hair flowing freely, laughing at something he said, her eyes completely lit up.
He is completely not knowing what he said that caused her to laugh so hard.
He just couldn’t understand it.
He set his phone on the desk, sat down, and watched the ceiling as an idea suddenly occurred to him, something he had never permitted himself to contemplate before.
It didn't arrive with noise. It did not make an announcement. It just entered the room and remained still in the silence, gazing at him unwaveringly and waiting.
And this was the thought.
“What if being tired isn't the start of anything?”
“What if being tired signifies the conclusion
- Writer
